Congress tried several times to enact a partial-birth-abortion ban but repeatedly ran up against the veto pen of President Clinton. The ban finally signed by President Bush sought to prohibit partial-birth abortions in most circumstances, but it was far from the absolute prohibition that many of its opponents have falsely claimed it to be. Instead, it allows partial-birth abortions in the unlikely event that such an abortion method "is necessary to save the life of the mother whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself." But because Congress found that a broader exception for the "health" of the mother was not required in any medical circumstances, the ban does not contain such a health exception.

The advocates of Roe read into the language, and quite reasonably so, that the health of the mother was the critical consideration. If her health were invoked as a reason to proceed with abortion, then that consideration became paramount.

Critics of the decision stayed up late at night, and continue to do so, seeking to find means to keep abortion rights from being categorical, in the sense that the rights to free speech are such. Does the right to abort mean that it is illegal to require a girl to consult with her mother? Do abortion rights specify any limitation on the interval between when an abortion is sought after, and executed? Can modifications be justified when related to the age of the mother? The primary matter that needed thought was the whole business of the health of the mother. When a doctor is asked to cite health as a reason to go forward into the later trimesters, is he actually talking about health defined as survival?

The attempt has been made to modify abortion rights to relate in a substantial way to the "health" of the mother. Is it supposed that, if the abortion were denied, the mother would die? Be crippled?

But formulations so arrant were not acceptable to the totalists. They held, and continue to do so, that the health of the mother is subjectively relevant. A doctor can advise that the health of the mother requires abortion because otherwise the mother would become morose, or disoriented, or demoralized, or whatever.

We're gratified by this sensible ruling, but pro-choice Americans can't rest for even a second. We know that if George Bush is reelected, today's ruling is likely to become just a speed bump on the fast track to eliminating women's right to choose entirely.

Since his first full day in office, Bush has worked to limit women's freedom....

"The abortion ban is a brazen affront to women's health, the right to medical privacy and the U.S. Constitution and was rightfully struck down," PPFA President Gloria Feldt said. "This ruling is a critical step toward ensuring that women and doctors -- not politicians -- can make private, personal health care decisions. Doctors represented in this lawsuit can now provide the best health care to their patients free from the daunting specter of prosecution by the Ashcroft Justice Department."

Such a ban constitutes a grave threat to women's health and a violation of their rights and should be struck down.

When abortion was illegal in America, many women died or suffered serious medical problems from either self-induced or illegal "back-alley" abortions. Women streamed into emergency rooms with punctured wombs, massive bleeding, and rampant infections.

In a highly anticipated ruling, a federal judge found the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act unconstitutional Thursday because it does not include a health exception.

U.S. District Judge Richard C. Casey in Manhattan said the Supreme Court has made it clear that a law that prohibits the performance of a particular abortion procedure must include an exception to preserve a woman's life and health.

It seems certain that same-sex marriage and a federal amendment to prohibit it should be front and center in any presidential debate devoted to domestic issues. It seems just as certain that Kerry will intone his "I am opposed to gay marriage, but in favor of civil unions," and that a friendly press corps will leave it at that.

But the marriage issue is a driving force in the election, as the vote in Missouri and future votes in other states, including Ohio, will prove. It is not an answer to say "oppose / favor" referring to gay marriage and civil unions. There needs to be a plan as to how to achieve that end because, unimpeded by legislative action, judges have been pushing decisions that impose same-sex marriage, decisions that will inevitably hop state barriers. Either you are in favor of obstructing the export of same-sex marriage or you are in favor of its inevitable transfer via judicial decree. That's the question that needs to be asked: "John Kerry, since you opposed DOMA, what actions do you support to prevent the courts of one state from imposing their rulings on another state?" Followed by: "If federal courts strike down DOMA, thus providing for the export of same-sex marriage from one state to another, would you then support an amendment to the federal Constitution to prohibit such export?"

The condescension demonstrated so graphically in this project is seen especially in the cultural and scientific put-downs the authors pitch at conservatives. According to The Great Divide, Metro America is filled with sophisticated secular people who have enough common sense to believe in the scientific method and to settle all questions of public policy according to simple "rationality." Meanwhile, we conservatives might as well be sitting on a stump in rural America, picking our teeth while trying to figure out which scientific theory we should oppose now. Who, ask the authors, could ever doubt this? Metro America "almost always excels" in matters of education and science.

Vice President Dick Cheney spelled out Tuesday his differences with President Bush on the volatile issue of gay marriage, while for the first time discussing the sexual orientation of his gay daughter in a public setting.

Asked his position on the subject at a town hall meeting in Davenport, Iowa, Cheney replied: "Lynne and I have a gay daughter, so it's an issue that our family is very familiar with....With respect to the question of relationships, my general view is that freedom means freedom for everyone. People ought to be able to free -- ought to be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to."

Cheney went on to repeat the position he first outlined in the 2000 campaign -- that same-sex marriage should be left to the states to decide. He noted, however, that Bush has endorsed a constitutional amendment preventing the states from recognizing such marriages.

Finally -- and this is the one the pundits have trouble grasping, given the self-promoting nature of today's culture -- real heroes don't call themselves heroes. Honorable soldiers or sailors don't brag. They let their deeds speak for themselves. Some of the most off-putting words any veteran can utter are "I'm a war hero."

Real heroes (and I've been honored to know some) never portray their service in grandiose terms, telling TV cameras that they're reporting for duty. Real heroes may be proud of the sacrifices they offered, but they don't shout for attention.

This is so profoundly a part of the military code of behavior that it cannot be over-emphasized. The rule is that those who brag about being heroes usually aren't heroes at all. Bragging is for drunks at the end of the bar, not for real vets. And certainly not for anyone who wishes to trade on his service to become our commander-in-chief.

All these revolutions, however, raise the suspicion that deeper forces are at work. Our metaphor may need to shift a bit.

So far we have pictured the cathedral of marriage being hammered by a variety of outside forces. It may be that these revolutions are more effect than cause. The marriage cathedral may have collapsed not from a few generations of external blows, but from the slow rotting of its foundations and support beams by spiritual powers over many generations.

It may be that there are termites in the marriage cathedral, weakening it (and the various cultural values and practices that sustain it) so profoundly from the inside that it took little more than a few pushes from without to make it collapse.

Marriage has faded as a social institution in American life. If marriage is a cathedral, we stand among its partial ruins.

Sam Harris: ...I think it's profoundly ironic that the most sensible statements about Islam to appear in our culture have come from our own religious dogmatists.

Prager: It's not ironic. That's where you and I differ. It is their faith that gives them (their values and) the strength to say it. I think the university is a moral failure because it is radically secular. You think it's a failure because they're just weak-willed and politically correct.

If I lived 200 years ago in Europe, I would have been tempted by the argument that reason alone, without God, religion and sacred texts, can lead us to goodness. After the depredations of the French Revolution; the horrors of two secular doctrines, Nazism and communism; the low moral state of American and European universities; and the moral cowardice and appeasement of evil in contemporary secular Europe, one has to be -- ironically -- a true believer to believe that reason alone will lead us to a more moral world. Of course, we need reason. But we also need God and moral religion.

Gen. Boykin's words do not fall in a gray area. He said in one speech of a Somali warlord that "I knew that my god was bigger than his. I knew that my god was a real god and his was an idol"; he described the war on terrorism as a "spiritual battle," noting that "Satan wants to destroy this nation, he wants to destroy us as a nation, and he wants to destroy us as a Christian army"; and he famously described a dark section of a photograph of the Somali capital as the "evil" that is the real enemy. "It is not Osama bin Laden, it is the principalities of darkness. It is a spiritual enemy that will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus and pray for this nation and for our leaders." Such beliefs are the general's right, but when a senior defense official utters them in public, they undermine just about every value the administration is trying to project in this war.

Of course, the argument arises over the question of just why the human embryo should be regarded as a human being, with the same human standing as those human beings we see all about us. If this were merely a matter of "belief," then for John Kerry the issue could be settled already. For he has already affirmed his belief -- fortified, he claims, by his religion -- that life begins at conception.

But happily there is a truth of this matter that does not hinge merely on "beliefs." What Kerry curiously affirms as a matter of mere personal belief happens to be the plain fact contained in every textbook on embryology and gynecology. Twenty years ago the Senate Committee on the Judiciary undertook a survey of the leading books in the field, and quite remarkably found a thorough consensus on the science of the matter. Twenty years later the consensus remains the same: Human life begins with the union of the male and female gametes to form a unique being, with a genetic definition quite separate from that of the mother and father. When we refer to the "human" embryo, we've already answered most of the question: The organism never undergoes a change in species. The offspring of homo sapiens is homo sapiens, or a human being, from its first moment to its last. And as the late Paul Ramsey once remarked so tellingly, there is nothing you and I have, genetically, that we did not have when we were that zygote, no larger than the period at the end of this sentence.

A discussion of Hayekian philosophy? I'm a big Hayek fan...his explanation of human institutions and societal order is fascinating. "Institutions which are the result of human action, but not of human design." He argues that a free hand must be left for change, but that the cumulative actions of the multitude contain encoded wisdom far greater than a handful of intellectuals could rationally conceive. I agree with Goldberg, this argument supports traditional marriage, not same-sex marriage. Though libertarians would argue it should not be a government matter at all (see my friend Jennie Keenan's article at fee.org). I find this silly because the courts will inevitably be dealing with it. And, of course, I share your belief it is a God-ordained institution. I don't want to see it turned into a meaningless agreement of which any combination of adults can enter into.